November 19, 2007 by Joe Kennedy.

This post was written by Joe Kennedy, Broker with AAA Properties and Publisher of Eastside Business newspaper and online news site and first appeared on the Eastside Business Blog.

It’s (almost) funny how the REALTORS® are trying to blame the real estate market (local and national) on the media.  Almost funny, but more embarrassing, because in addition to being a member of “the media”, I am actually a dues paying member of the Seattle King County Association of Realtors, Washington Association of Realtors, National Association of Realtors, North San Diego Association of Realtors and California Association of Realtors - at least until my membership expires at the end of this year.  I don’t think that I will be renewing my membership and helping them pay for their smear the media campaign. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in REALTORS, Media, Blogging, Residential, Eastside Business, SFR | No Comments »

November 19, 2007 by Joe Kennedy.

As anyone familiar with Bellevue knows, there are a number of huge high-rise condo projects being built, with well over a thousand new units scheduled to come on the market over the next couple of years alone. Here are some of the projects currently under construction:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Residential, Condos, Bellevue | No Comments »

October 31, 2007 by Joe Kennedy.

According to an article in the Seattle Times, Seattle area home prices fell in August.  I look for a lot more of this to happen, as there seems to be fewer buyers and a lot more inventory on the market - much of it drastically overpriced.

Posted in Residential, SFR | No Comments »

October 2, 2007 by Joe Kennedy.

Last week I had a call from a gentleman here in Bellevue who was very excited about our $500 Flat Fee Listing program. We still haven’t officially announced or launched it, but he had read about it in a post on one of my blogs and gave me a call.

Apparently he has been trying to sell a family house as a FSBO (for sale by owner) for the past two or three months with no success. First of all, he should not feel all alone - there are many homes in our area that have been languishing on the market for months - and they are listed on the MLS and represented by agents!

I explained to him that it is very important for his property to be exposed to as many potential buyers as possible and that in my opinion, the best way to do this is by getting the house listed on the local multiple listing service (MLS). He agreed that’s what he needed to do and went to AAAListsHomes.com to get the forms to fill out to get listed.

A short time later, he called back to ask about the selling broker commission. With a Flat Fee Listing, no listing commissions are charged or paid, but the seller does need to offer selling brokers (or buyer’s agents) a commission for their work. Our FSBO didn’t want to pay the buyer’s agent at all - in his opinion that should be up to the buyer!

I explained that real estate commissions, while always being negotiable, are traditionally paid as a percentage of the sales price of a property - and from the sales price. That means the seller generally pays the sales side of the commission, even if that agent is working for the buyer. Another thing that I mentioned to him is that buyers are having a hard enough time finding financing, without having to come up with another big pile of cash to pay commissions.

AAA Properties is happy to be part of changing the real estate industry by eliminating listing commissions, but the fact is there are still thousands of agents out there who represent most of the buyers. We want those buyers agents to show our listings to our buyers, so we recommend that those who use our flat fee service offer a full 3% to any agent who brings them a buyer. This is truly the only way to make sure that your property gets full exposure to the market and will bring the best price possible.

In the end, it is unknown if our FSBO will be listing his house or not, whether he’ll choose to offer a selling broker commission, how long it will take him to sell the property or whether he will get a good price for his house. What would you do? What do think will happen in his situation?

Skidoodleski, Hair Farmer Joe

Posted in MLS, Residential, FSBO, Commissions, Listing, Bellevue | No Comments »

October 1, 2007 by Joe Kennedy.

As predicted a number of months ago, the number of homes in Bellevue listed for sale under $500,000 has continued to increase. Today there were 54 single family residences (SFRs) listed for sale here in Bellevue for less than half a million dollars. These are all properties listed on the NWMLS and does include a few townhouses, but doesn’t include the many for sale by owners (FSBO) around town.

I look for this number to continue to increase for some time, as it continues to get tougher to qualify for a loan and prices drop back down to some normalcy.

Has anyone else noticed how many places are for rent lately? Do you think these could be people who thought they’d have sold their properties for huge profits by now? Will the availability of these rental units and many under construction have a lowering effect on rents? Or will the real estate sales slowdown turn a lot of would-be buyers into renters again and cause rents to rise?

If you want to search homes that are on the market, try the new Seattle Home Search site or on the Eastside, check out the place to find Eastside Real Estate for sale.

Posted in Residential, NWMLS, Listing, Bellevue | No Comments »

October 1, 2007 by Joe Kennedy.

In the past 24 hours there has been a lot of activity on the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS). There were 852 new listings, 185 properties place back on the market, 63 price increases, and a whopping 701 price reductions. On the plus side, there were 23 properties placed on contingent status, 316 pending sales and 467 sales that closed. The largest figure and perhaps a surprise to some was 1802 listings that expired.

My guess is that many of those expired listings come back on market in the next week - and I’d like to help them.  With a Flat Fee Listing home sellers can easier drop their sales price thousands lower than what they would have to try to get if they were paying a listing commission.

Posted in Residential, NWMLS | No Comments »